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[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Why Father’s Day?’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, June 18, 2017
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TODAY, I don’t have to be a psychic to predict that friends and relatives would greet or text me, “Happy Father’s Day.” To which I would answer, “Oh no, it’s not my birthday yet. I am not going out to celebrate today.”
What I hate about Father’s Day in the city is the inconvenience caused by bumper-to-bumper traffic of motorists inching to the same direction that ends in a congested restaurant. The convergence of so many people in one place reminds me of the Tagalog saying, “Gaya-gaya, puto maya.” Why should I sacrifice my comfort just to go with the flow? I am tempted to interpret the scene as sadism on the part of restaurateurs and masochism on that of the celebrating families.
If it’s the middle-aged children aching to treat an octogenarian father or grandfather in an expensive restaurant, the latter might find “waiting to be seated” an agony he would rather be spared of. No doubt he would prefer going out on a “non-Father’s Day” or staying at home on Father’s Day to be visited by food-bringing children who have settled down with spouses in other places.
I bet most fathers who celebrate or are tickled to celebrate Father’s Day don’t even know why, aside from his birthday, he has another day to celebrate – every third Sunday of June.
When we started printing Panay News in 1981, there was no Father’s Day being celebrated in the Philippines yet. Until now, after a frantic internet research, I have no idea how and when the Filipinos first adopted this non-holiday tribute to male parents. It would nevertheless be correct to guess that we copied the tradition from the United States, which is recognized by all encyclopedias as its originator.
One of the two versions traces the first public celebration of Father’s Day to the state of Washington on June 19, 1910. It was a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd who thought of honoring her father while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at church in 1909. She wondered why only the mothers were getting all the acclaim when the fathers were equally praiseworthy.
William Smart (Sonora’s father), a veteran of the Civil War, was a widower. His wife having died while giving birth to their sixth child, he went on to raise six children by himself on their small farm.
The other version claims that the first Father’s Day was celebrated by Grace Gloden Clayton in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908 after she had suggested to the minister of the local Methodist church that they hold services to celebrate fathers’ day in honor of 361 men who died in a mine explosion.
In 1924, President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge recommended that Father’s Day become a national holiday. But no official action was taken.
It was much later in 1966 that President Lyndon B. Johnson, through an executive order, designated the third Sunday of June as the day to celebrate Father’s Day. However, it wasn’t until 1972 that President Richard Nixon officially recognized Father’s Day as a national holiday in the United States.
To repeat, I don’t celebrate Father’s Day. But I concede that because of closer family ties that bind the old and the young together, even if it’s not an official holiday here, it’s more fun in the Philippines. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
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